Tacoma business leaders see opportunities coming out of Covid
Tacoma business leaders see opportunities coming out of Covid By Cathy Duchamp for The Business Journal.
Despite a labor shortage and high office vacancy rates, Tacoma business leaders are bullish on the city’s strength coming out of the pandemic.
Covid created uncertainty, ambiguity and risk for the business community. But it also created the opportunity “to create a different community” and for different organizations to find different opportunities, said Bill Robertson, CEO of Tacoma-based MultiCare Health System.
The message resonated with the gathering of more than a hundred South Sound business leaders at the Tacoma Business Forum, an event held by the Puget Sound Business Journal on April 21 at the Greater Tacoma Convention Center. Robertson was interviewed on stage by Business Journal reporter Shawna De La Rosa. Robertson said Tacoma’s business culture, “where we collaborate,” will help the city create opportunities coming out of the pandemic.
Veteran Tacoma developer Eli Moreno has realized success collaborating with retailers and Tacoma government to grow his Surge Tacoma coworking business. He said all of the company’s one- and two-person office spaces in downtown and the Brewery District are rented. Moreno is bullish on the future. “So many people (are) moving to the area, employers eventually will have to set up satellite offices,” he said.
Still, the pandemic has presented challenges.
“Right now, we’re struggling like everybody else is for workers,” said Deborah Lee, CEO of Tool Gauge, a Tacoma-based aerospace manufacturer that creates parts for Boeing 737 Max jets, among other projects.
The pandemic, combined with the grounding of 737 Max jets for nearly two years after two fatal crashes, dwindled demand for parts. Now, Lee said, “we’re trying to do everything that we possibly can to get people in.”
Demand for office space in Tacoma cratered during the pandemic, but tenants are now returning, said Bill Frame, CEO of Kidder Matthews. With local companies now transitioning to hybrid work, “The question is, how much square footage do we really need?” he asked.
Of note, Frame said, was national investment in the Tacoma office space market. “There was about $120 million worth of investment in downtown Tacoma in three, four different projects from money outside the market,” he said. “So that’s a huge thing for us. I haven’t seen that in a long time.”
In the long run, to make Tacoma more attractive to employers, among other things, there needs to be a sense of vibrancy in downtown, said Columbia Bank CEO Clint Stein, “to create a place that businesses want to be and where people want to relocate and live from an affordability perspective.” Also key, he said, is a local labor pool that wants to stay in the area.
The University of Washington Tacoma expects to graduate more than a thousand engineering majors this spring, say Moreno. “This is the labor pool … that used to move up to Seattle because there were no jobs here,” said Moreno. With its relative affordability in terms of rent rates and housing costs, Moreno says Tacoma delivers the formula to attract high-tech employers and high-growth companies.
